


So you don’t forget I have a heart, and it’s yours

by Nekohime_Yami



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, I'm Sorry, M/M, Projecting, major character death but not really, this has a happy ending because real life doesn't haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:59:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekohime_Yami/pseuds/Nekohime_Yami
Summary: It shouldn’t feel like his heart was tearing itself apart when Kolivan told the team Keith was gone.Gone, because there wasn’t even a body, a proper confirmation that Shiro could see and move on or- orsomething.How does one move on, how do they even process it when their future goes down in a blaze of glory, turned to dust and scattered in the wind?





	So you don’t forget I have a heart, and it’s yours

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [this song](https://youtu.be/p2ilB_P4gY4), loosely translated.  
> Also listened to [this song](https://youtu.be/1txjtqnTe2s) and [this song](https://youtu.be/V-6na1EPTNw) for writing... if you'd told me before That Day that I'd be listening to Bruno Mars and crying I'd have laughed at your face but alas, here we are.
> 
> Sorry in advance I just projected a bunch of my shit on Shiro to try and process the loss of the girl who could have been my wife haha anyway I phisically cannot read this but [my friend](https://yami-scribbleyard.tumblr.com/) did and he said it’s good enough so I’m publishing it.

For all effects, for all everyone knew, Keith was just a friend. A friend Shiro barely saw at all, after he’d left team Voltron for the Blade. They hadn’t even known each other for that long, objectively speaking. Some five years? Six? Time was weird in space, but it was seven years at most. That wasn’t long, even less so considering they’d been apart for at least one or two of those years.

It shouldn’t feel like his heart was tearing itself apart when Kolivan told the team Keith was gone.  _ Gone _ , because there wasn’t even a body, a proper confirmation that Shiro could see and move on or- or  _ something _ .

It didn’t process right away. He took the news with a kind of distant apathy, like he was hearing it through static. He heard the weak reactions from the rest of team Voltron, his own barely there because he still couldn’t  _ process it _ . Keith just couldn’t be  _ gone _ , he was life and he was fire and determination and he was  _ young _ . He was Shiro’s future. He was-

Shiro usually stayed after the meetings to get more work done, but not this time. He walked back to his room, sat on the bed. Stared into the wall across from him like it held the answers. Like it could help him comprehend what he had just lost, his friend he had known for seven years at most, his friend who he barely saw anymore for the past two years or so.

_ “I don’t wanna get married, really,” Keith said, frowning at his hands. “But I’d marry you. I think it would work,” he smiled softly at Shiro. _

_ Shiro smiled back. “We’d elope to that desert planet you like. Marry under the stars with a bouquet of those red alien flowers. Find someone to officiate. Then we’d come back and the team would want us to do it all over again, with Altean music and-” Shiro’s images were cut by that familiar rough laugh, and soon they were laughing together. _

_ “After we save the universe, maybe… we could travel together. The universe is so big! It would be fun to just explore, you know?” Keith had that soft look about him that always warmed Shiro’s heart. _

_ “Yeah. When we’re done with this war, let’s do that.” _

That had been the last time they’d talked face to face. They’d parted on good terms, with soft smiles and a hug. There should be no regrets.

Shiro didn’t cry. He prefered to keep his emotions reigned in rather than let them out, and that usually worked. His trauma, his sadness, he could just compartmentalise everything and-

The tears were falling before he could complete that thought, and soon he was curled in on himself shaken by more tears than he thought he had in himself and full, gross sobs that teared out of him. It was the realisation that he would never see Keith again, touch his soft hair or his shoulder, hug him, hear his voice, see that soft smile that he only ever turned at him… the realisation that his future had just died with Keith. That the universe being saved wasn’t that relevant anymore if he couldn’t share the peace with Keith, if he didn’t have their marriage and their exploring to look forward to after it was done.

Every one of those thoughts made him cry harder, sob deeper, feeling like his heart had just been split in half, and one of the halves had died.

He’d wanted to take Keith to the desert and ask his hand in marriage with a ring of black steel inlaid with that pretty glowing red stone he’d found in that moon with the unique sunset, because it would suit him. Wanted to marry him under the stars with that old song he liked playing in the background. Give him a bouquet of those vaguely intimidating but stunning red flowers he found growing on a planet that had tried to kill them because they reminded him of him. Hold on to his waist as they sped on Keith’s hoverbike through the canyons like old times because even if Shiro was broken Keith still wanted him.

_ He wanted his future back _ .

 

Shiro spent that day and the next between crying hard enough to tear out painful sobs and looking to everyone else like he was mostly alright.

Keith had been just a friend. No one else knew what he could have been, no one else knew Shiro hadn’t just lost a friend he didn’t even know for that long and who he’s barely seen in the past few years or so, he had lost his an entire future built with Keith in it. Plans upon plans crumbled to dust like Keith himself had, according to Kolivan. Gone in a blaze of glory, suddenly as he had come. Fitting, but not any less tragic for it.

 

They said it gets better. Everyone was back to normal a week or so after. Shiro had come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t be back to normal after all, not anytime soon. His tears had mostly dried, and he was used to not letting on much of what was going on inside his heart.

Mostly, no matter how much time passed, Shiro kept seeing Keith everywhere. Not in the hallucination kind of way, but he was in everything. He saw anything red, and it was Keith’s favourite colour. He saw a sword, and it was Keith’s favourite weapon. He looked at the stars and remembered sharing the view with Keith. The fingerless gloves he wore reminded him of the identical pair Keith used to wear. Any black hair was Keith’s, anything violet was Keith’s eyes. He would see a speedy vehicle or a dragon or a rock or a flower and want to show it to Keith and his heart would break all over again because he  _ couldn’t _ . He would find a new way to use his bayard, or have a new story to tell about a planet or see a sunset and it was all Keith, Keith, Keith and he had never noticed how much he thought about him until he was trying to  _ stop _ .

He couldn’t stop. Shiro wanted Keith back, he wanted his future back, and there was  _ nothing _ he could do about it and it was  _ frustrating _ .

 

A memory of a moment after Shiro was chosen for Kerberos. Keith under the desert sun, saying  _ I’m so proud of you _ .

It shouldn’t matter so much, but Shiro realised it was the only time anyone ever said they were proud of him. He would have cried again, but he couldn’t manage more than one or two tears for anything since he had shut down on the second or third day  _ after _ .

 

Shiro was unsure how long it had been since  _ that day _ , but he was acting mostly normal. There was no reason for anyone to believe he was still grieving.

In fact, after spending his whole life either rationalising or invalidating or simply suffocating his feelings, Shiro had doubts himself. Maybe he wasn’t really grieving, just using the loss of a friend he barely even saw anymore as an excuse to be sad and retreat and snap at people for no reason.

Maybe it was all internal drama.

 

Shiro realised at some point, a few months later maybe, that what he felt for Keith had been more than friendship.

_ More than friendship _ because it had been friendship too, but also more. It had been so since they met for the first time, maybe.

He had loved Keith all along, in so many ways.

 

Shiro tried to think of something he wouldn’t give to have Keith back with him, or not even with him but just… back. It was fine if Keith was with someone else, he wasn’t being bitter when he said they could be just friends.

As long as Keith was alive, as long as they could be together sometimes, that was really enough.

 

Shiro didn’t tell anyone about his feelings, because there was no point. His feelings for a dead man were worth nothing.

  
  


Kolivan showed up in the Castle of Lions some time later.

(Shiro didn’t know how long, because time in space had been confusing to begin with, and it had become completely irrelevant after Keith was gone, so.)

At first, Shiro thought he had finally started hallucinating. Black hair curling up at the back of his neck, falling softly over intense indigo eyes. Pale skin and frown that at the sight of Shiro turned into a smile that had been burned into his mind, been run frayed after repeating over and over in Shiro’s memories in the time before and since  _ that day _ .

The most precious thing in the universe. His future. His heart.

“We thought we should give you the news in person. He found us a while ago, even though we were sure he had blown up with the planet he was on,” said Kolivan.

It wasn’t an hallucination, then. Shiro’s hands trembled, and he pressed them into fist to make them stop. He was just a friend, it was nothing, he-

“Sorry for worrying you guys,” Keith said softly, still smiling softly at Shiro, and that did it.

Something snapped inside him, and his breath hitched. Shiro lunged forward to envelope Keith in a hug, because he was  _ real _ and he was  _ back _ and he would never take that for granted again. “It’s good to have you back,” he whispered.

“It’s good to be back,” Keith murmured back.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come scream at me on [my tumblr](http://mousou-note.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
